It's been an hour since I heard the news of Alan Rickman's passing from this Earth. I've spent that hour crying in my bed, reading Twitter and Instragram tributes and re-watching my favourite Alan Rickman moments on YouTube.
I first fell in love with Alan as he bought Colonel Brandon to life, my most loved hero from Sense and Sensibility. He made me laugh in Love Actually; he made me think in Michael Collins and he embodied my favourite character like no one else could have in eight Harry Potter films. Nobody but Alan could ever have played Severus Snape so brilliantly; the terrifying, broken, brave Potions master and double agent. My heart broke when Snape was killed, I'm more heartsore again that the man who bought him to life so brilliantly is gone.
And so, in tribute, I have put together this short piece. It has never and will never be edited, or be seen by a beta. I present it to you raw, in the hopes that it may go some way towards soothing any hearts that are as broken as mine feels and in the hope that Alan, his family and friends, know how very loved and adored he was by millions of fans around the world.
Where there had been pain, there was none.
Where there had been fear, there was none.
Where the burning desire, the need to fulfil his final task had driven him and spurned him on, he was easy. Right now, the boy would be learning his fate. That final task, too, had been fulfilled.
And Severus Snape was glad to be dead.
The meadow was beautiful, more beautiful than it had been in life, more idyllic than reality, sitting at the rise to a small hill. The breeze was warm and carried on it the scent of honey suckle and jasmine. The sun warmed him, he couldn't remember being so warm for years and, as he looked down at his hands, he could have wept to see them clean and unmarked, no scars besmirching them, no memories of suffering staining the skin there.
It shouldn't have surprised him then, when he pushed up the sleeve of his frock coat, that his forearms too, showed nothing of the way he'd lived his life. For the first time in twenty years, the Dark Mark did not besmirch the pale skin found there.
"Severus."
He was no longer alone in the meadow and as he staggered forward into the arms of the woman that had been his best friend and the love of his life, Severus wept.
She was warm in his arms, flesh and blood and life. The sun danced from her hair and her body fit within his as she held him close.
"Lily," he gasped into her hair, breathing in the scent he had only been graced with through the use of Amortentia for the last sixteen years. "Lily, I'm sorry, so sorry."
"Shhh," she hushed him, as one would a small child. "Severus, don't apologise. I forgave you years ago."
"How?" He turned tortured eyes to hers, staggered still by the depths of the green he found there. Despite what everyone had said, despite the fact that the mere sight of them had tortured him for seven years, her son's eyes were a pale imitation of her own.
"My son, Severus," Lily gripped his hand in earnest. "You saved my son and so many others. You have been so brave, Sev. We owe you so much."
Her grip loosened then and his tightened accordingly.
"Where are you going?" He called desperately, as she pulled away from him.
"I'll see you very soon Sev," she smiled gently at him. "I'll be just over that hill. But before you join me, there are some other friends who want to welcome you."
"Hello, Severus," a quiet, hoarse voice spoke from his other side, as he watched Lily make her way up and over the hill. He turned, shocked, to see his mother.
Eileen Prince looked younger than Severus had ever seen her. The small smile that graced her features as her son met her fingertips with her own was more genuine than any half lift of her lips that Severus could ever recall being bestowed upon him as a small boy.
"Everyone is talking about you Severus," she told him quietly. "My son, my little boy, the saviour of the world."
"Hardly," Severus scoffed.
"My brave son," Eileen murmured, running a hand over his shoulders, toying with the ends of his long hair, ignoring his derision. "I was never the mother you needed. Everything you have done is in spite of the way I've treated you, not because of it. I do wonder though, if you could have been so strong, so brave, had I have been a better mother. Had you had something to live for."
"The past is over now," Severus told her, none of the angry words and hateful tirade that he had imagined bubbling to his lips. The hate and anger were gone, faded into nothingness in the peace that surrounded them.
"We have forever now," she promised him, slipping away from him with a small smile and following the path that Lily had taken over the crest of the hill.
Severus had no time to feel alone before a rustling of robes behind him caused him to turn.
"Severus, my dear boy. My very, dear boy," Albus Dumbledore stood before him then, arms outstretched, eyes twinkling. "You've done it, my boy. I never doubted you."
"It is not over yet, Albus," Severus murmured, accepting the affection from his former master unthinkingly, though such easy affection had never existed in them before.
"But it will be, my boy, very soon. And it is all possible because of you," Dumbledore's earnest smile faded. "Can you forgive an old man, Severus, for asking too much? I have asked more of you than any other and you have held up under the heaviest of burdens better than any other could. It is because of you, Severus, that we will win this war. You will be celebrated by the wizarding world for generations to come as the bravest of men."
"I never wanted to be celebrated," Severus returned quietly. "All I have ever wanted is peace."
"I can grant that, child."
Dumbledore was gone then, making his own way, slowly over the hill, where more lost friends and loved ones waited to greet them. Severus was not alone however, as he stood beside the figure he had managed to evade for over twenty years.
"Hello, old friend," Severus murmured, casting one last look around the meadow of his childhood. "I'm done hiding from you now."
And he took Death's hand and went with him gladly over the hill, as equals.
Below, thousands of wands were raised in tribute to a great man.
Vale, Severus Snape. Vale, Alan Rickman.
Always.